Enchanted by Electives

An overview of the most popular electives

   There are approximately 122 different courses students can take at Potomac Falls.  With this many classes to choose from, it can leave students wondering which ones they’d like to take next year. Some of Potomac Falls’ most popular courses include:

 

  • Introduction to Business and Marketing taught by Melvin Barrow

   Introduction to Business and Marketing is a course for grades nine through 12 designed to prepare students for a career in this field. Information about the role of business and marketing in the free enterprise system and global economy is taught along with decision making skills as consumers, employees and citizens. Communication and interpersonal skills are also taught.

  “I’d recommend Intro to Business and Marketing because it’s a platform that we have for our program. It gives you a little bit of each one of the types of classes that we teach, [such as] Sports and Entertainment, Marketing Co-Op, and Advanced Marketing. We also teach a little bit of travel and tourism marketing in there as well. It’s a lot of fun to see how everybody reacts to all this stuff in the world. We talk a lot about pop culture and stuff, too. [My] favorite topic that I teach [includes] sponsorship of amature athletes, which was a brand new topic we talked about this year,” said Barrow.

  “It’s a very fun class to take, the teacher is nice and not hard to talk to. It gives you a break from your more demanding classes. All the topics taught in this class are very fun to learn about,” said freshman Maddie Calvo. 

 

  • Psychology taught by Jessica Ewald

  This half-semester course for students in grades 11 through 12 focuses on human behavior and how to gain a better understanding of why people do what they do. Parts of the brain, the purpose of sleep, and psychological development are just a few of the topics discussed. This class is also a great stepping stone for students who want to jump into Advanced Placement (AP) Psychology.

  “I know it sounds cheesy, but I love everything I get to teach for this class. I highly recommend this course to students because all of the information learned is about their lives and their actions,” said Ewald.    

  “Psychology is really fun, mainly because Ms. Ewald teaches it. We get to learn about how the brain works [and also] parts of the brain, like the thalamus and the hippocampus. Right now we’re learning about dreams and how they work, which is a really cool topic,” said junior Carrie Bates.

 

  •      Gourmet Foods taught by Shirell Ashwell

   Science concepts in biology, chemistry, and physics are critical to the study of foods. Those subjects are taught in this half-semester course including topics pertaining to science of foods, technology, wellness, sports nutrition and sanitation. Computers are used to help analyze food nutritional content, and hands-on activities dealing with food preparation are a part of the class as well.

  For Ashwell’s class, she teaches students important culinary skills and techniques as well as how to cook safely.

 “I love being in the kitchens with the students. Having them create is the best. I think out of all the labs we do in class – pizza and stir fry are my favorites. They do take quite a lot of teamwork, and I love to see the students pleased with their final products. Learning to cook will help save money; you don’t have to eat out, and it’s better for you. [Overall,] Gourmet Foods is a fun, hands-on class,” said Ashwell.

  “It’s a really easy class to take and Ms. Ashwell is really understanding about how our schedules are really busy. It’s a good break for the middle or end of your school day. [This class] also helps you with life skills because we learn about good meal preparation, and you learn a lot of knowledge about how to better prepare yourself when you’re an adult,” said sophomore Melina Martinez.

 

  • Public Speaking taught by Jeannie Jens

    Students are taught the process of intrapersonal communication, oral interpretation, and group discussion with the help of generating and evaluating ideas and feelings. This half-semester course promotes personal growth and development by helping improve oral communication skills with application to other academic disciplines and to life experiences.

  For Jens’ class, she helps students learn how to gain confidence, and learn the critical speaking skills that are necessary for life in high school and beyond.

  “Helping students gain their confidence is something we work on throughout the whole semester. One of the ways we do this is by helping students learn to support one another. They give positive feedback, they give areas for improvement, and after every speech, we share out things that we liked about them. [We do this] to try to build their confidence and their feelings so they can speak comfortably in front of people. It takes a lot of classroom collaboration to create that environment,” said Jens.

  “This class is a really great way to overcome your fear of public speaking. Before [I took this class,] I would get really nervous, especially about eye contact. But Ms. Jens really encouraged us to be the best that we can. We just learned about interview speak, which was really nice. With interview speak, you get to hear speeches about yourself. We’re [also] about to do job interviews, and it’s going to help us in real life,” said sophomore Adrienne Yeh.